Resource Tax

Dear Editor,

Re: Resource tax.

The NT News editorial of 5th November, 2009 seems to side with career bureaucrat, and now Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, over the need for a resource tax.

I seriously question the need for additional taxes of any kind, and certainly not a resource tax on the mining sector, which of course provides so much of Australia’s income.

Even if this resource tax went ahead, what would be the benefits? And more importantly, how would this new taxation revenue be spent?

In my view, state and territory governments would undoubtedly waste the money by building bigger bureaucracies and installing more incompetent, time-serving public-service “managers”. The resource tax funds would be squandered.

For example, the GST, introduced by the Howard Government in July 2000 as a means of providing a revenue stream to the states, and hopefully wiping out some obnoxious state taxes like stamp duty and payroll tax, soon became a milch cow to pay for the ever-expanding numbers of taxpayer-funded employees in every state and territory.

Here in the Northern Territory, the Martin and Henderson governments have increased the number of taxpayer-funded employees by well over 4,000 since Labor was elected in 2001. The annual cost of this scandalous mismanagement would likely be in the order of $500 Million or up to $5 Billion during the entire period of the Martin/Henderson Labor Government.

Providing governments with endless revenue streams is akin to buying an alcoholic another drink, or providing a drug addict with more drugs. The “disease” is only exacerbated.

However, the editorial correctly points out: “A resource tax would undoubtedly scare off some miners”.

But can Australia really afford to scare off anyone, let alone the miners who already contribute in so many ways to this country’s high standard of living.


Less taxation, smaller-well-managed government is the way forward for a prosperous Australia, where everyone can benefit from our wealth, not just those, like Ken Henry, who feed at the taxpayer-funded-trough.

Yours truly,

Dave Wane

6th November, 2009